So, is overtaking illegal now????

Marcus.Aurelius

well of course you swerve. But you are supposed to stay close to the white line otherwise. My apologies for not reading the post through. I thought I had.

EDIT: By the way, I imagine GTC must have misread it too. Take it handy.

BrianD3

Good, we're in agreement so! Looking back over the thread I think GTC responded to unkel when he meant to respond to the guy on the motorbike who says he like to use the opposite HS to put more space between him and the target. I'd agree that this is highly dangerous.

BostonB

BrianD3 wrote:

Good, we're in agreement so! Looking back over the thread I think GTC responded to unkel when he meant to respond to the guy on the motorbike who says he like to use the opposite HS to put more space between him and the target. I'd agree that this is highly dangerous.

All it takes it a pothole...

cpoh1

So to sum up, why are Irish drivers so crap that they make a simple and safe thing like overtaking dangerous?

The only thing this thread has told me is that overtaking more than two cars is fine and safe in foreign countries with competant drivers but not in Ireland with the clowns we have on the road.

BostonB

cpoh1 wrote:

So to sum up, why are Irish drivers so crap that they make a simple and safe thing like overtaking dangerous?

The only thing this thread has told me is that overtaking more than two cars is fine and safe in foreign countries with competant drivers but not in Ireland with the clowns we have on the road.

You get bad drivers in every country. However the lack of enforcement here means more people get away with woeful driving.

Esel

The thing that really hacks me off is d!ckheads who overtake three abreast. Now that is dangerous - and illegal.

MrPudding

I was out for a ride this evening with my IAM 1 2 1 observer. I overtook a line of traffic during the course of the ride. There were 2 40foot artics and 6 cars. I took them all in one manouver.

When we stopped to discuss my riding we talked about this particular overtake. As far as he was concerned it was perfect. Very long straight with no junctions. I could see there was an oncoming vehicle but it was very far away. My position was perfect and he could see I was watching the vehicles I was passing, I used my horn to alert drivers of my presence and did not have any issues.

I mentioned this thread and specifically how some people think that passing more than one vehicle is wrong..... he just laughed.

MrP

GreeBo

MrPudding wrote:

I could see there was an oncoming vehicle but it was very far away.

Isnt there an implicit assumption that the other vehicle is doing no more than the speed limit?
If its not (as advocated on many an other thread on here) then could you have been in real trouble?
If the road is that straight, long and smooth then the other guy might have decided that 150kph was a good speed for that stretch?
Thats what fuels my concern for overtaking multiple vehicles, until we get speed limit enforcement yo have no real idea what the opposition might be doing.

Mitch Connor

GreeBo wrote:

Isnt there an implicit assumption that the other vehicle is doing no more than the speed limit?
If its not (as advocated on many an other thread on here) then could you have been in real trouble?
If the road is that straight, long and smooth then the other guy might have decided that 150kph was a good speed for that stretch?
Thats what fuels my concern for overtaking multiple vehicles, until we get speed limit enforcement yo have no real idea what the opposition might be doing.

spacial reasoning can be the decider here. If the person could see the car in the distance, they can guage the speed it is doing, and factor that into deciding whether it is safe to overtake. Same type of thing as pulling out on to a main road - you judge the speed of the cars already on the road and then decide if you have enough time.

GreeBo

Tauren wrote:

spacial reasoning can be the decider here. If the person could see the car in the distance, they can guage the speed it is doing, and factor that into deciding whether it is safe to overtake. Same type of thing as pulling out on to a main road - you judge the speed of the cars already on the road and then decide if you have enough time.

But my point is that you are assuming the other traffic will not decide to speed up past the posted limit.
Plenty of times people have pulled out in front of me on my bike as they assume I am not going to be going faster than say 20kph, which I frequently am.

Mitch Connor

well then they are idiots without any spacial reasoning skills - not everyone is that moronic.

MrPudding

GreeBo wrote:

But my point is that you are assuming the other traffic will not decide to speed up past the posted limit.
Plenty of times people have pulled out in front of me on my bike as they assume I am not going to be going faster than say 20kph, which I frequently am.

It was a 40 foot artic coming the other way and it was a looooong way off. I had plenty of time to judge it's speed as I moved to the offside and then waited as 2 cars further up the line overtook the artic at the front.

During this time I could see the oncoming artic was not going any faster then I expected. I could also see there did not appear to be any vehicles behind it preparing to overtake and I identified 3 points in the queue where I could pull back in should I need to.

I can assure you that when I am riding my bike I make very, very few assumptions about other roads users intentions. I did not assume he wasn't speeding, I gathered information and made my decision to overtake based on that.

Making assumptions is a great way to get into trouble.

You really should consider doing some advanced training, I am not being funny, but i think you would find it a real eye opener. You seem to disagree with a lot of what is taught but I believe that is simply ignorance. Surely if insurance companies give a discount there must be something in it?

MrP

GreeBo

MrPudding wrote:

You really should consider doing some advanced training, I am not being funny, but i think you would find it a real eye opener. You seem to disagree with a lot of what is taught but I believe that is simply ignorance. Surely if insurance companies give a discount there must be something in it?
MrP

I dont really disagree with alot of it, I just think that the more cars you overtake the more you increase your potential for an accident.
If the course advocates driving higher than the posted limit (which I am assuming it doesnt?) then I totally disagree with that too.

Its not a perfect analogy by any means but compare overtaking to walking with your eyes closed.
Before you close your eyes you have the chance to check out your surroundings and see if there are any obstacles in your way. There arent so you close them.
Now you would want to be pretty mad to keep going for very long with your eyes closed as the environment around you is changing but at least in this scenario you can open your eyes and stop walking, you cant always pull back into the correct lane when something goes wrong as its not really possible to
a) be able to see whats going on 4 cars in front
b) assume that their speeds are not changing and reducing the gaps between them...

just my 2 cents.

Esel

MrPudding wrote:

It was a 40 foot artic coming the other way and it was a looooong way off. ...

But what if it was a 20 ft? Could you really tell?

GreeBo

MrPudding wrote:

It was a 40 foot artic coming the other way and it was a looooong way off. I had plenty of time to judge it's speed as I moved to the offside and then waited as 2 cars further up the line overtook the artic at the front.

Not wishing to harp on or get too annoying (:)) , what if there was a guy on a bike behind the oncoming artic just about to start the same manoeuvre?
I reckon that could get pretty scary pretty quickly.

MrPudding

GreeBo wrote:

Its not a perfect analogy by any means but compare overtaking to walking with your eyes closed.

You’re right, it is not perfect. In fact it is far from perfect.

GreeBo wrote:

Before you close your eyes you have the chance to check out your surroundings and see if there are any obstacles in your way. There arent so you close them.Now you would want to be pretty mad to keep going for very long with your eyes closed as the environment around you is changing but at least in this scenario you can open your eyes and stop walking,…

Agreed. But then one of the first things I learned, in my basic training, was not to ride with my eyes closed.

GreeBo wrote:

you cant always pull back into the correct lane when something goes wrong as its not really possible to

If you don’t have somewhere to get back in, should you need to, then you have to question whether or not the overtake is on.

GreeBo wrote:

a) be able to see whats going on 4 cars in front

You can get a good view ahead from the offside.

GreeBo wrote:

b) assume that their speeds are not changing and reducing the gaps between them...

You make no assumptions, you gather information and assess that information and then make you decision based on that.

Roadcraft is very systematic in general, this carries through to overtaking. The first stage is information gathering, this may involve a move to the offside to get a good view, there is no acceleration here, it is simply a change of position in order to get a better view and assess if the overtake is on. At this point you should be looking for oncoming traffic, junctions and your point of return to the near side. In addition you should be looking for “outs” should something go wrong. The hazards and dangers are assessed and a decision to go or not is made.

There is danger with every manoeuvre you make on the roads but by using a systematic approach you can reduce these risks. I am not a risky rider. I am still learning, as we all should be, but I am considered to be a safe and progressive. I will make progress on the roads but not to the detriment of safety. I know I can safely overtake multiple cars and I do.

MrP

gyppo

MrPudding wrote:

If you don’t have somewhere to get back in, should you need to, then you have to question whether or not the overtake is on.

MrP

Thats all very well, but the gap you had spotted at the start of your manouvre might not be there by the time you might need to use it. Lots off assholes speed up when they see someone attempting to overtake them.

GreeBo

GTC wrote:

A universal mantra for advanced driving has been "Slowly into danger and quickly out of danger". <snip> , i.e. minimise your time over the white line.

Surely the quickest way out of danger and spending the least amount of time over the (broken!) white line is to overtake each car individually?

Marcus.Aurelius

No, then you maximise your time over the line! Like he said in an earlier thread, you must minimise the amount of swinging out you have to do! The longer you're out, the more people see that your are out, less chance of people overtaking without looking.

If there isn't enough room on the road, e.g. a twisty road, you may be forced to overtake each one at a time because you can't see enough of the road. In his thread, he clearly said a long straight.

GreeBo

maoleary wrote:

No, then you maximise your time over the line! Like he said in an earlier thread, you must minimise the amount of swinging out you have to do!

So there is some number of overtakes that it is only possible for you to do in a trip?
Thats what you are implying.
There is no difference between over taking 4 individual cars and overtaking multiple cars 4 times, you just think there is as the 4 individual cars happen to be close together.

MrPudding

gyppo wrote:

Thats all very well, but the gap you had spotted at the start of your manouvre might not be there by the time you might need to use it. Lots off assholes speed up when they see someone attempting to overtake them.

OK, then I give up. Maybe we should make overtaking illegal.

What would you suggest? I will not sit in a queue. I will use everything I have at my disposal to pass cars so I have a good view and make progress.

If we assumed that everyone would speed up and not let us in then we would never overtake. Whatever we do on the road carries a degree of risk. We can reduce this risk as much as possible by using a systematic approach to everything we try to do.

If you find your safety space closing find another, remember, you may not even need it. This is the belt and braces approach. If you have analysed things correctly you should not need it, it is there for an emergency in case something unexpected happens.

MrP

GreeBo

MrPudding wrote:

If we assumed that everyone would speed up and not let us in then we would never overtake.

But if its only 1 car then there isnt really an "in" to have to worry about.

MrPudding wrote:

had plenty of time to judge it's speed as I moved to the offside

What if while you are on the offside checking the road ahead some idiot pulls out of a side road that you cant even see from your angle? From there there is a solid line of 4 cars blocking your vew.

MrPudding

GreeBo wrote:

There is no difference between over taking 4 individual cars and overtaking multiple cars 4 times, you just think there is as the 4 individual cars happen to be close together.

Yes there is, I pointed it out earlier. To take you cars individually you have to make 4 moves to the offside, 4 accelerations and 4 returns. If you take them all at once it is one move to the offside, one acceleration and one move back. You will spend less time, in total, on the offside with the multiple overtake as you get up to speed and finish the move. With the other way you have to accelerate, pull back in, pull out, accelerate again as you have dropped backed to the speed of the traffic again and so on. So instead of going from traffic speed to overtaking speed once, you have to do it 4 times.

Over and above the fact that it is slower the individual method is more dangerous as you have more moves to make, each time you make a move you add risk.

MrP

Mitch Connor

GreeBo wrote:

But if its only 1 car then there isnt really an "in" to have to worry about.


What if while you are on the offside checking the road ahead some idiot pulls out of a side road that you cant even see from your angle? From there there is a solid line of 4 cars blocking your vew.

what if that one car decides to move up closer to the second, as youmove ahead of him, thus meaning you can't get back in line without being too close to the second car; your "in" is gone, and it was only 1 car. While this was happening, the car behind you has moved up from behind you and is now too close to the back of the first car so you can't go back to where you were. No in there either.... You could point out potentail problems in every situation, no matter what you are doing.

MrPudding

GreeBo wrote:

But if its only 1 car then there isnt really an "in" to have to worry about.

Yes there is. We are taking about 4 cars in a row. If you take them one at a time what is to stop the guy closing on the car in front?

GreeBo wrote:

What if while you are on the offside checking the road ahead some idiot pulls out of a side road that you cant even see from your angle? From there there is a solid line of 4 cars blocking your vew.

See here is the thing, I won't overtake if there is a junction. I will use my position in the road moving around to get a picture of what is ahead. I will look at signs telling me there is a junction ahead, i will look a tree lines and hedges for clues as to where the road I am on is going and for hints of other roads that may join it. I will look accross fields for house and other buildings that may give clues as to where there may be roads or lanes that may allow people to join my carriageway.

My riding is obviously very very different to yours. I don't make assumptions. If I don't have a view I will not make a move, it is a simple as that.

And you have just given a great reason for overtaking, one which I believe you dismissed earlier. Car in front block you view, it is perfectly reasonable to overtake, assuming it is safe, to get a clear view of the road ahead.

MrP

Mitch Connor

MrPudding wrote:

Yes there is. We are taking about 4 cars in a row. If you take them one at a time what is to stop the guy closing on the car in front?



See here is the thing, I won't overtake if there is a junction. I will use my position in the road moving around to get a picture of what is ahead. I will look at signs telling me there is a junction ahead, i will look a tree lines and hedges for clues as to where the road I am on is going and for hints of other roads that may join it. I will look accross fields for house and other buildings that may give clues as to where there may be roads or lanes that may allow people to join my carriageway.

My riding is obviously very very different to yours. I don't make assumptions. If I don't have a view I will not make a move, it is a simple as that.

And you have just given a great reason for overtaking, one which I believe you dismissed earlier. Car in front block you view, it is perfectly reasonable to overtake, assuming it is safe, to get a clear view of the road ahead.

MrP

but what if there is a proximity mine under the road on the offside that you could not see - you'd be dead....

MrPudding

Tauren wrote:

but what if there is a proximity mine under the road on the offside that you could not see - you'd be dead....

That is true actually. Damn, back to the drawing board. I will mention this to my instructor, Road Craft may have to be rewritten.

MrP

MrPudding

GreeBo wrote:

Not wishing to harp on or get too annoying (:))

Too late.

GreeBo wrote:

what if there was a guy on a bike behind the oncoming artic just about to start the same manoeuvre?
I reckon that could get pretty scary pretty quickly.

Part of the system is to continually assess what is going on. It is not a case of "the overtake is on , let's go." If something happens then I will assess it and take appropriate action.

MrP

witnessmenow

fletch wrote:

Yes this thread is getting tiresome now. I don't think anyone can dispute that overtaking is dangerous. The longer you spend overtaking (time exposed the danger), the greater the risk. However in that manner, if some Joe Soap overtakes one car in his 1.4 Golf and it takes him 30 seconds as he dawdles past, does that make it less dangerous than me overtaking 2+ cars but it also taking me 30secs?
Walking is dangerous but we all do it. Walking across the road is more dangerous but we all do it.

30 seconds in a golf? try dropping a gear maybe?!!

I do agree with what your saying though. I only have a 1.0 corsa which obviously takes a bit of time to over take, but when im driving my old lads 3.0lexus gs300 i could easily pass out 2 cars in the same time. Only problem i have is since there is an obvious MASSIVE power diffrence in the 2 cars , i have to really watch myself when im driving my tin can!

Overtaking obviously is more dangerous than not overtaking, but if its done right the rise in danger is minimal.

jmayo

Mr Pudding you are flogging a dead horse here.
Never the twain shall meet and all that...
This thread has been going round in circles for a while now.